The list of goods seeing a spike in sales related to the Coronavirus Pandemic is extensive. Some items, such as hand sanitizer, disposable gloves, and masks are somewhat logical. Other items, like toilet paper make slightly less sense. Even others like board games make some sense given the fact that millions of people are stuck at home. And a few products are even more inscrutable. Enter: shoe covers and painter's tape.
Shoe covers have seen a sharp increase in Amazon ($AMZN) sales tank, moving from a rank of 76 (out of 100) on February 23th to 35 on February 25th. Shoe covers continue to see popularity, with a sales rank of 13 on March 16th. Utilizing shoe covers to help slow the spread of surface contamination of COVID-19 is a fairly intuitive, if unproven, development.
Remember that the lower the number on the chart the better the sales.
Painter's tape has also seen jump in sales rank, somewhat more inexplicably. On and before March 6th, painter's tape had a fairly consistent rank of 89. On March 8th, it skyrocketed to number 33.
This coincided with a number of blogs recommending using blue painter's tape and a marker to help delineate between items used by individuals in close proximity within self-quarantine. The rank steadily normalized over the course of the next week and then shot back up again on March 16th.
A little bit of digging uncovered that the second round of unusual sales corresponds with several news pieces regarding Ohio polling stations using blue painter's tape to help cordon off six-foot walking paths to assist visually with maintaining social distancing.
COVID-19 continues to influence every market and social trend in unpredictable ways.
About the Data:
Thinknum tracks companies using the information they post online - jobs, social and web traffic, product sales and app ratings - and creates data sets that measure factors like hiring, revenue and foot traffic. Data sets may not be fully comprehensive (they only account for what is available on the web), but they can be used to gauge performance factors like staffing and sales.